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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConflict Over Trump Forces Out an Opinion Editor at The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journals editorial features editor has left the paper following tensions over the section drifting in a pro-Donald Trump direction.
News of the departure of Mark Lasswell, who edited op-eds for the Journal, comes as the papers internal tensions over Trump have begun to spill into public view. The reliably hawkish, pro-trade, small government conservative Journal op-ed page has been challenged by the rise of the populist, nationalist Trump movement. The Journals opinion pages have been a showcase for the intra-right divide over Trump, featuring Trump-sympathetic writers like Bill McGurn alongside anti-Trump columnists such as Bret Stephens. Lasswell appears to be a casualty of that divide, and his dismissal a victory for the pro-Trump faction on the editorial staff.
According to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Lasswell was in effect phased out over a period of months from the paper. He took a book leave during the election following conflict with his boss Paul Gigot, the editorial page director, about the extent to which the page should run material sympathetic to Trump.
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According to a source close to Lasswell, the relationship between Lasswell and Gigot broke down in June when Gigot blocked Lasswell from publishing op-eds critical of Trumps business practices and which raised questions about his alleged ties to Mafia figures. Lasswell asked Gigot for a book leave for the remainder of the election. Gigot, who had been critical of Trump, took a sudden turn on the candidate, the source said. In a note to staff on July 5, Gigot announced Lasswells leave. The note reads in part:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/conflict-over-trump-forces-out-an-opinion-editor-at-the-wall-street-journal/516318/
no_hypocrisy
(45,774 posts)No surprise here.
herding cats
(19,549 posts)That he was fired over the phone was exceptionally sleazy, too.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)an American citizen
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Given that the 1% control most of the media, the fiction of liberal media bias is a constant triumph of spin over substance.